Dietrich von Saucken

Dietrich von Saucken (16 May 1892-27 September 1980) was a General der Panzertruppe of Nazi Germany during World War II on the Eastern Front.

Biography
Dietrich von Saucken was born on 16 May 1892 in Fischhausen, East Prussia, German Empire to a noble German family, and he was an aspiring artist before serving in World War I. After the war, he was a Freikorps leader on Germany's eastern borders. He learned to speak Russian while on a special assignment to the Soviet Union in 1927, and in 1939 he became a Colonel in the Wehrmacht. Von Saucken was a conservative monocled Prussian nobleman who despised the Nazi Party, and he disrespected Adolf Hitler one one occasion when he entered his office with his monocle and a cavalry saber; he did not surrender his sword to the guards, saluted Hitler with an army salute and not the fascist salute and "Heil Hitler!" remark (and did not remove his monocle when saluting him), called him "Herr Hitler" and not "Mein Fuhrer", and said that he did not intend to be commanded by a gauleiter. Hitler did not respond forcefully, instead giving up and letting Von Saucken operate as his own commander. Von Saucken served as a commander of panzers in the early stages of World War II, leading the 4th Panzer Division in the 1943 Battle of Kursk before being given command of his own kampfgruppe during Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944. His forces fought against the Red Army on the Eastern Front and during the Soviet push into Poland, East Prussia, and Germany, fighting off the Soviets for a while in the East Pomeranian Offensive of early 1945. His Army East Prussia was surrounded by the Soviets, and Von Saucken refused to abandon his men; he surrendered to the Soviets on 9 May 1945, and he was imprisoned in the Tayshet gulag until 1955. He retired to Pullach, Bavaria, where he died in 1980 at the age of 88.